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Ludivine Graun
Ludivine Hyacinthe Graun was born in Lévis in 1958. Her father was a librarian, her mother a homemaker. Both of her parents were deeply involved with the Social Credit movement, and her father ran as a Creditiste candidate in the 1963 election, albiet as a name-on-ballot candidate for a far-flung riding. She was the eldest of three daughters and two sons, and excelled in school, especially in French and debate. She was elected to student council, and served as Secretary in her final year of high school. Completing her pre-university program at the Collège de Maisonneuve, Ludivine attended UQAM, where she graduated in 1980 with a degree in Political Science and Economics. The rise of the Parti Quebecois was a serious event in Ludivine's life: a soft nationalist, she was initially thrilled, but her excitement was tempered by what she witnessed around her. The entire city split down the middle: the Anglophones bunkered down on their part of the island, the Francophones in theirs, and the two groups rarely exchanged anything but insults. Office towers emptied out as the jobs and money moved to Toronto, entire neighbourhoods up for sale as families vacated for points west, and an overwhelming sense of resentment, anger, hatred and dread that permeated the streets. By the time she graduated, she'd had enough, and accepted a position as a policy analyst for the Department of Communications in Ottawa, where she worked until 1992, when she was headhunted to the private sector. She spent the next three years quietly working in Montréal, when she was moved to Québec City just in time for the 1995 referendum. Ludivine didn't vote in the referendum. She could bring herself to support neither side, viewing "non" as tacit endorsement of Quebec's place in Canada, and "oui" as signing up for disaster led by a group of nationalist buffoons. She wrote a letter to La Presse expressing this view, and found herself invited to read it and discuss it on a Radio-Canada broadcast. Her letter was subsequently republished in English in the national press, leading to a national editorial award. It was her fifteen minutes of fame, and it came during a media circus, but she latched on, and she liked it. La Presse offered her a position on their editorial board, and Ludivine accepted. By mid-1996 she had a monthly, then weekly, column. She focused on provincial and federal politics, and frequently expressed left-wing libertarian views, including advocating for same-sex marriage in a 1999 column. In 2000, she sought and obtained the Liberal nomination for the seat of Quebec-Est, and unexpectedly beat a Bloc Quebecois incumbent. However, once she entered the Liberal caucus, things soured. A left-winger at heart, but a libertarian by ideology, Ludivine was constantly butting heads with both the whip and her colleagues. Eventually, she was threatened with expulsion from the caucus. Ludivine's response (reported to be "eat shit") did not deter them from following through on the threat, and since 2002 she has sat as an independent. Ludivine lives with Matteo Randi, her common-law husband. They have been together since 1989 and have no children. Electoral Results